For a lot of young working women, living away from parents has been an experience of liberation and peace. In University hostels or apartments shared with flat mates, women have been able to cultivate non-judgmental spaces for themselves and in some ways, they have been successful in living a dual-life.
With the onset of lockdown in March 2020, the scenario changed. With rampant salary cuts, restrictions from landlords, mounting rent and the cost of living in another city and managing household chores with increasing work pressure prompted a lot of women to return to their hometowns. For some, going back home brought the promise of eating healthy and finding more time for themselves, but for some going back meant returning to the same abusive environment they initially escaped.
Abusive Environment
In Indian households, family is considered as the most important facet of our lives. Our mythology, cinema and soap-operas have time and again reinforced it and raised to such a high pedestal that once an individual questions it or doesn’t treat it as a priority, they are labelled as ‘selfish’, ‘rebel’, and ‘corrupted by the western influence’. This kind of idealization allows for abuse to go unnoticed and even justifies it to a certain extent as it is all done in the name of caring for each other.
Abuse can mainly take up three forms - Physical, verbal and emotional. From a very early age, parents as authority figures exercise control over their children’s lives, their choices, often curbing their needs, pressuring them with unrealistic expectation and silencing their opinions when they aren’t favorable. In extreme cases, physical abuse and verbal abuse are common when one of the parents is an addict or unemployed. In most cases, this abuse doesn’t stop when children become adults it merely takes new forms.
Moral Policing & Body shaming
From the way you dress to the time you wake up, most Indian parents intervene in every aspect of their children’s lives. Comments like, ‘You are too fat to find a husband’ or ‘You are too skinny, people will think we don’t feed you enough’ are casually hurled during meals. The length of women’s shorts is used to draw parallels with their character and their neckline is used to slut-shame them. Their views on politics, marriage and sexuality are constantly policed by parents as they do not conform with their value systems and religious beliefs. Family members casually bully their children over their life and career choices, without realizing how it affects their morale and diminishes their confidence.
Pressure to get married
For a lot of working women, living in another city and having a consistent pay is a way to avoid the pressures of getting married. Now that they are back home, the pressure to get married has increased, as relatives and family members feel it is better to get engaged/married rather than sit ‘idle’ at home. For many parents, it is about shaking off the responsibility of settling down their daughters, which just adds to the pressure the youth is currently facing.
The flailing economy, rampant lay-offs, salary cuts and a complete change in our social lives has affected the mental wellbeing of working women. These challenges coupled with the societal pressures and domestic abuse will only worsen the situation for women. For women who were about to join the workforce or were unemployed are struggling to find jobs during the pandemic as organizations across industries aren’t hiring. For the ones who are already working, the perils to keep their jobs are higher than ever; they are expected to work round the clock and meet the unrealistic demands of their clients/supervisors. Instead of leaving the women to fend for themselves, what we need is a more compassionate and inclusive approach to get through these dystopian times.
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